Blog

EP NC 273 – Recharging From Work With Mai Tais In Maui

When was the last time that you took a step back and relaxed? Almost every successful entrepreneur is guilty of burning both ends of the candle, but as Scott just realized while sipping mai tais in Maui – setting some time off of work in order to recharge is necessary. Especially for those of you out there who are working a full-time job AND working to invest in your spare time. Sometimes it’s hard to see the end game, that vision of where you want to be five, ten, twenty years from now. If you want to be fully equipped for seizing the best opportunities, especially in the upcoming Note CAMP 5.0, you need to learn how to unwind and free up your mind from constant stress. Identify your note investing finish line, but in order to get there, make sure your batteries are charged to the fullest.

Listen to the podcast here:

Recharging From Work With Mai Tais In Maui

I have been gone for about a week from doing the show and I’m excited to be back to get rock and rolling. Some time to unwind, recharge the batteries, and what better place in paradise to do that. A big shout out to my partner in crime, Stephanie Goodman, celebrating her birthday today. She crawled back into bed after I tempted her to watch the sunrise from the volcanoes.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the need to take a break, the need to recharge your batteries. We had a lot of our WCN crew and our note family in Las Vegas this weekend at the Paper Source Symposium. Everybody had a good time there. I see a lot of networking taking place, people posting online, which is great, but I know it’s very easy to burn both ends of the candle sometimes and I’m one of the better ones that’s doing that, “Go, go, go,” until you burn out or you fall flat face into your table from working too much. It’s been nice to be here. I haven’t looked at my email once for the last six days, so if you sent me an email, sorry I haven’t answered it. I’ll get to it when I get home. I’m not looking at a lot social media, posting mostly photos from the things that we’re doing, but taking the time to enjoy the scenery and not think about work.

Stephanie and I have had a total of maybe an hour conversation this week about work, but mostly what we had to get done on the first day on vacation because we have a few loose ends, but it’s important to recharge. We’ve got a gorgeous view of the whole resort. The view is just relaxing and there’s something about Mai Tais and Maui that will make you smile and take a deep breath and unwind. Let that stress evaporate from our spine and things like that. It’s a beautiful thing and I know that especially a lot of us out there that are doing so many different things, you’re either doing notes full-time or full-time real estate investor, we’re running and gunning. Especially those of you that are out there working on full-time job and working to invest in your spare time. Sometimes it’s hard to see that long end game, the vision of where you want to be in five years, ten years, twenty years, let alone a year from now. You can keep running and gunning and it’s hard to come to see the forest because you’re smacking yourself with a tree.

I can’t tell you honestly how many times we came close to cancelling this trip just because of everything going on. Three weeks prior to coming out here was three of our busiest weeks that we’d ever had with Note CAMP 5.0 and then our Mastermind in Cape Coral. Everything that goes with all the loose ends that come from running events like that and making sure everybody’s got everything they need. Then making sure all the loose ends are tied up from the 30 plus speakers that we had at Note CAMP and making sure all the list are sent out, make sure that we’re covering well. We run a little bit of a short staff. Big kudos to Jennifer in our office for doing a lot of stuff. What’s funny is it’s great to unwind and we had some great things that we’re focused on over the next six months, but it was really important to get away. I told Steph, “If you want to cancel your part, go ahead. My ass is still going to be on that plane to Hawaii with or without you to unwind.” This is one of our favorite spots. We’ve been here before and it was absolutely just a beautiful spot to hang out with. Maui, itself, is what you think of Hawaii.

We went onto the old Luau and it’s absolutely fun. A lot of times we take for granted how in tune we are with what we’re trying to do in this industry and making sure that students and our note Ohana are doing well and have everything that they need to achieve the success that they’re looking for. It’s nice to sit and unwind and take a minute for ourselves to relax. I know I’ve got people like, “Can you give me a phone call? I’ve been texting you. I hate to bother you on your vacation.” If it’s important, I can answer it in five minutes. If not, it’s going to wait while I sit on my butt, but that’s what I’m trying to get at as I ramble here with the waves and the ocean behind me here. If you’re struggling or your family’s struggling to see the big picture, take the time, book something three months, six months, or a year out. Go ahead and book it, put it on the schedule, go ahead and plan it and give yourself something to work for because I know that we work very hard for our goals. We work very hard to achieve big things in their lives, but a lot of times if you don’t book it, you’ll plan over. I am very guilty of this. One of the first things that we do every year is take a look at the schedule and then we map around this time of year to take some time to celebrate Steph’s birthday. We take some time at the end of May and celebrate mine. We take some time end of October, which is Steph’s favorite holiday season to do that and the two weeks around Christmas, those are the times that we don’t schedule that much into and then we fill in from there, but that’s the biggest thing. Your calendar is the thing that you control more than anything else. Sometimes you need to be a slave to the calendar, which you get successful in going to conferences or going to club meetings and things like that.

Recharging From Work: You don’t need a shut up check. Maybe you need to provide a shut up vacation.

It’s important for you to take time to book it for yourself and your family and your spouse or your loved ones. Sometimes it’s important to just to get away. You don’t need a shut up check. Maybe you need to provide a shut up vacation. “Look, honey. Look what the note business provided for us.” What’s funny is we’re here this weekend in the hotel and Kwik Trip, which is a chain of convenience stores, they’re having their annual convention, annual get together, and all these convenience store owners from all across the country are here. They all checked in yesterday afternoon and they’re here for a couple of days. These people are coming and joining us, which is great, but you can tell in a lot of them that it’s their first big vacation and they’ve done a good job managing things and that’s great. That company is painting a bigger picture and saying, “Thank you.”

One of the things that we’d love to do and about the Masterminds is we’ve done it in exotic locations like Hawaii in Waikiki Beach and Hawaii Honolulu Hilton a couple years ago. We did it Napa a couple years back. We’ve done it in Cape Coral. It’s to allow people the opportunity to get to someplace away, unwind, and get away from the 40-hour work week. Somebody would work 40 hours in a day if you have the opportunity, but to unplug, unwind, distress, and just chill the F out. Have you a Mai Tai, have you some good cup of coffee, good sushi, good food, your feet in the water, sand between your toes, and just unwind a little bit. Sometimes it’s the most important thinking.

Sometimes it doesn’t have to be an exact location. Sometimes you just need to book a night downtown. Take the lady out, take the husband out, and just get away from it all. Turn the phones off and unplug your email. Steph’s like, “I need you to log in to your email.” I’m like, “Nope.” “What do you mean no?” “I can’t access my email from my phone.” If I could access my email, I know that I’d be doing my email on my phone non-stop, and that is one thing that I will refuse to do. If it’s important enough, I’m going to check my email. If it’s important enough, somebody will send me a text message or they’ll contact me on social media. If they don’t know that, they’re not important for me to take time out of my schedule, away from where I’m at, away from dinner or luau or cocktails, my friends and family. I’ll get to it when I get to it.

That’s what I can tell you more than anything else, is book something or schedule something if you can. It’s important to just get away, have a room service sometimes, which is great, having somebody to cater to you. I know that a lot of ladies like to go to the spa, which is great and get your manicures done or your pedicures, your hair done. I get that. It’s what makes you feel special. Guys sometimes, we’re a little bit different. We take things on our shoulders and hold things in. We’re supposed to be the breadwinners. Sometimes you just got to unwind, sit in a hot tub with somebody bringing in a cocktail, the waitress bringing drinks every 30 minutes. Maybe you need to go lay in the pool or float in the water.

The best thing I can tell you is to take time away to do it and do it on a regular basis and book something every quarter. Book something at least every six months because you will run yourself down. You will be the worst for wear if you keep running and running. How do I know? Because I am the world’s greatest on doing that. There are weeks where I travel thirteen weeks straight for the note business, whether it was speaking or gone to a convention and sometimes it’s been a month in Vegas. That’s not the place you want to spend a month at. That’s the place where you will need a vacation from your vacation when you go to Vegas for a month. Why a month? Because I would be there for three weeks out of four weeks for three different conventions. It just made more sense for me to book a suite at Caesar’s Palace and hang out for the extra week. By the time that month rolled around, I thought my liver was beating me up to get out of the town.

I feel very relaxed. We’ve got some big things coming up. We’ve got about three weeks in town before we head out for another trip for a couple of weeks. We’re running and gunning in these three weeks. We get home in the next couple of days. We’ve got some cool things that we’re working on with AI in our marketing and our note business that we’re rolling out before the end of the year. We plan to hit episode 300 with the podcast before the year’s out. It’s crazy to believe that. I think as of right now, we’re the longest running podcasts based on the other note podcasts not posting episodes for months. We won’t go too long, a couple of days here and there. I know we’ve been a little hit and miss in the last few weeks with Note CAMP and the mastermind, but I want you to know that the Note Closer Show podcast, we’re committed to providing excellent information to really help you stay in tune and knock some things out. Some people have been closing deals, Laura Blanc, Eric Hyde, Mark Hamrock. They’ve been doing some great jobs out there closing some deals. I love seeing some of the marketing online with you guys, videos and using Animoto and some other things, SlideShare, slideshows. It’s s great to see all that stuff taking place.

Once again, if you are busting your butt like I know many of you are, take the time, book something, put it on the calendar, and schedule it. Gail is kicking butt and taking names to our note astronaut. Congratulations to you, Gail. She’s a JV and offering free notes since the Mastermind, which is awesome. I know a lot of people are doing some big things like coding the week after the Mastermind. Phil and Melanie Jacobs or getting ready to close on a couple of deals. Dan is up and getting ready to close on four or five more, which a great. Congratulations to all you guys and going out and making things happen. I’m so proud. Gail, I appreciate that you did most of the work. You just took the knowledge of what we provided and what everybody else in the WCN crew, our Note Closer Show, our podcast, our note family provided the education.

You got into it and that’s the beautiful thing about the note business. You don’t have to be tied to one thing. You don’t have to control everything. I’m glad to have people go out and close deals and make things happen. Somebody asked me what’s in store for the next six months for everything. We have our next workshop in June. I think it’s 21 through the 23rd or 22nd through 24th. Somewhere around the third week in June. We have a new thing called our Note Boardroom taking place in June or July in Las Vegas. Our next Mastermind, for those who are curious, we’re butting up with the Quest Expo taking place in in Dallas, Texas. It’ll be the first time we have our Note Mastermind take place in Dallas, Texas. I’ve got a sweet price on the room block because we’re budding up with Quest IRA.

If you want to come in, we’re only going to do a two-day Mastermind because the other two days or day and a half is going to be where you can network with a bunch of other investors at Quest IRA at the Quest Expo. They’re supposed to bring in close to a thousand people for their big event. Yes, I’ll be speaking at it. You have to have a booth. I think we’ll probably have a VIP table for our Mastermind members and really have some fun stuff for our Mastermind.

I know that a lot of people are out there doing different things, which is great. I know you’re working hard, but have some fun. Take some time to do it. We literally sat down at the spot where I’m at right now here for a late lunch and two cats show up. I think Stephanie is planning on a Hawaiian cat rescue. What are some of your favorite places to go unwind? I know our buddy, Val, loves to go back to Europe with his family, Croatia, especially the beaches in Croatia and hang out there. Where are some of you guys’ favorite spots to go to? I like Hawaii. I’ve always enjoyed going to Cape Coral. In Austin, I like to sit on my back patio a lot of times. I love living in Hawaii. It’s a great place to live, a great place to relax. I know the beach is always a fun place for most people, whether they’re in Florida or South Padre, California. The most important thing I can tell you is it’s important to take some time each day, whether it’s ten minutes or twenty minutes, and probably just be to yourself. Be quiet.

Recharging From Work: Wherever you can go to unwind, leave the computer off, leave the phone off, the better you’re going to be long-term for you guys.

Wherever you can go to unwind, leave the computer off, leave the phone off, the better you’re going to be long-term for you guys. One of the great things that we love doing is Hotels.com. Steph does a really great job of using Hotels.com to find this stuff. If you use Hotels.com or Airbnb, you will often find some really great deals on places to relax and chill. Oftentimes, it’s cheaper than you’ll find anywhere else. Steph’s looking within a four-year period. We spend a year out of that time literally in hotels, traveling. Somewhere where the palm trees and waves crashing is one of my favorite spots, right on the water. It’s always a great thing to be doing. When Steph calls Hotels.com with a problem, they fix it immediately. Sometimes, it’s good to sit and enjoy. It’s one of my favorite times of the day if I’m not traveling somewhere. Where there’s a beach nearby, I’m getting up early in the morning, get a cup of coffee, watching the water, walk along the beach, getting your toes dirty, feel the coldness of the water on your feet. Something about the water just washes away stress, washes away the needs and worries. Often, some of our best ideas come when I’m sitting here relaxing, whether it’s for the podcast or for our workshops or students or masterminds or on deals.

If you get the time and you don’t have anything planned, take the time to go ahead and book something in 90 days. It’s a gift to yourself for doing hard work and really focusing on your goals and dreams and business goals, specifically your business goals. It’s for yourself, not for your job, something for yourself. Jump on your calendar, go to Hotels.com, and book. Maybe it’s just a night out with your wife on the town and staying at the hotel. A little romance. Maybe it’s someplace tropical, someplace with some water, and maybe just to get away. Unfortunately, I have friends that spend more time at the beach than they do anything else and they wonder why they have not been successful at other things. There’s nothing wrong at having fun, but you’ve got to find the right balance. If you’re too busy always hanging out and you’re not providing for your family, you’re the biggest draw on your business. It’s not the beach but yourself for not being able to balance what’s important and what needs to be done.

We’re here at the Sheraton Maui, just enjoying the gray overcast skies of the sunrise. There’s been an overcast for a couple days but the sun’s peeking in and out here while we’re on vacation. We booked a camping trip with the scouts from March 19 to stay at Leprechaun RV, which is awesome. It’s nice to enjoy the beach. Sit here and understand that what you worked so hard and enjoy moments like this. It’s one of the things that I love doing. Let’s book a trip. Book a cruise. Book a European vacation, a beach vacation, a place just to get away and have some good food, good drinks, enjoy the quietness of your thoughts. I know that Tony Robbins is a big fan, every morning getting up at this place, sitting on the beach, listening to his meditation music, jumping into his cold 55-degree bath cold tub.

Identify a deal or two or half of a deal, whatever your business model allows for it, and turn that into a productive part of that. It doesn’t mean you can’t work the days that you’re abroad, but take the time to go out and do it. What’s four days out of 365? Not even 1% of the year. You owe it to yourself for at least 1% of the year, I would say at least 12th of a year to enjoy yourself. Try to do something fun every month if you can. That’s what you should look to, you should try to do it. Figure out what the flight is. Figure out the hotel costs are, and double that number. If it’s $5,000, go ahead and budget $10,000, and then just live it up. Go do it. Trust me, you will never be disappointed in taking vacations. You’ll never be disappointed in making those memories for yourself.

Recharging From Work: You owe it to yourself for at least 1% of the year, I would say at least 12th of a year to enjoy yourself. Try to do something fun every month if you can.

The best times I’ve ever had has been when I was traveling. I’ve been to Nevis, Antigua, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, just some of our favorite places. I’ll never ever regret taking this time. I regret not taking those trips if I ended up having to cancel or something pops up. I would rather take those trips and in today’s world, especially in the note world, you can take your business on the road. Spend a couple hours each day working in the morning and the evening just to stay in touch, touch base with your vendors and go out and do something. Trust me. You owe it to yourself, so book it.

You know what’s funny is I think we all wear stress in our bodies in different ways, whether it’s the lower back or upper back or neck or whatever. Steph’s been cracking up at me because I’ve been popping my neck and cracking my neck just throughout the last couple of years. It’s the stress leaving my body. It’s Steph’s birthday. She turns 29 and we’re going to get up and go see the sunrise this morning at whatever the volcano’s name is. We drove up the mountain volcano and rode back down, got back in time to do the show here. Otherwise we’d be trying to do something live from the volcano. We’ve got reservations at Mama’s Fish House, one of the best restaurants in the world. We’re going to go over there early, have dinner, and walk around. We picked up some tikis at the luau, so we got to swing by and drop those off and ship them because they’re too big for carry-on luggage or regular check luggage. For those that have never been to Hawaii, I would highly and definitely recommend coming to Maui. Maui is definitely what you think of when in Hawaii. Waikiki beach is where the touristy side of things and in Honolulu is, but I would recommend flying over and taking the 30-minute flight over here to Maui. It’s definitely much quieter and laid back.

I’m getting ready to kick some ass for the next three weeks with some big stuff. We’re working on so many things. Just so you guys have a little bit blue for the hung around for a little bit. We’ve got some stuff, different automated things that come in for tapes. I’m working on some artificial intelligence things with some programming to do some stuff that nobody else is doing in a lot of the note or real estate industry right now. You’ve got that under. I have signed off on that before we left, so our developers are in the process of putting some stuff together for that. I imagine going in and responding to a text message and then having deals pop up directly to your phone, into your handheld with a picture of the property and some of the basic numbers and due diligence numbers, basic ROIs and be secured asset touching your phone.

How cool would that be? Those are some of the things that we’re working towards doing here in the next six months, by the end of the year hopefully and be able to bring that to fruition. We’re going to be hiring some more marketing staff, revamping that up here over the next two months. I’m buying a lot of assets before the year’s out as well. We’re really trying to change the industry for good. I’m excited to be heading out to Raleigh Durham for the Triangle REIA Club meeting at the Investment Club. Tuesday night from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM is the meeting. I’m excited to be speaking out that Investment Club. I’ll be speaking in Houston for requests for events. We’re heading up to the PodFest Expo taking place in Philadelphia. The Podcast Movement is the name of it in Philadelphia in the last week of June.

I want to say thank you for joining me on this episode of the Note Closers Show podcast. A little bit different, a little bit of taste of what we’re experiencing here on a daily basis. Enjoying ourselves, rejuvenating, recharging our batteries, reading to the wit, some both ends of our candles so that we can come back and give you even more bigger and better. We look forward to seeing all of you.